Famous Jewelry Collections: THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

THE BEADING GEM'S JOURNAL

Posted: 08 Feb 2012 04:00 AM PST

Wire name writing is a super technique to try because the resulting necklace focal is created from one long piece of wire without any soldering!

There are no easy short cuts - practice is required. You should use thicker and firmer wire to form the letters- do not use soft temper. The harder tempers will keep the shape better as you go along. Making your letter formations smaller sized will also help. I learned that the hard way as I had a go myself (see link below).

Note that there has to be places where the wire doubles back on itself. So try writing out the name in one continuous motion first to figure out where those doubled up areas are.

Remember too that wire name writing can result in distinctive styles just as hand writing differs. If you are willing to learn more, check out the following video tutorials by Andy the Name Bender. He forms the name Samantha over 3 video tutorials.

What is neat to watch is how he adds a heart and and underline. The heart is actually one of the places where the focal attaches to the chain. The underline flourish adds strength to the design. He also turns an ordinary jump ring into a split ring by overlapping the wire ends.

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

He also covers a dual name design in this video tutorial.